[teestub]

It’s fairly surprising that someone, particularly a medical professional, could have missed the whole MMR thing at the time, it was kind of a big deal.

[petejh]

Problem being we were already doing that discussion and various views including your own were already in the mix, before you arrived and stirred in your special bullshit sauce.

Nothing about what you just said is controversial. You could easily have said what you just did, without the last 8 pages of your own utterly needless bullshit and links to dubious bullshit, and many people would have agreed that they’re also not in favour of mandates.

[IanP]

Problem being we were already doing that discussion and various views including your own were already in the mix, before you arrived and stirred in your special bullshit sauce.

Nothing about what you just said is controversial. You could easily have said what you just did, without the last 8 pages of your own utterly needless bullshit and links to dubious bullshit, and many people would have agreed that they’re also not in favour of mandates.

^ This totally.  There are moral and ethical questions around mandates / vaccine passports / restrictions etc that definitely need to be discussed.  As a small 'l' liberal my general tendency is towards freedom of choice where possible (taking into account impacts on others) so have some sympathy with this.  However that needs to be discussed in the context of a realistic analysis of the science/data and conflating it with a load of links to unsubstantiated outlier analysis and tbh bullshit really doesn't help your case in any way.

[mrjonathanr]

There are a lot of posters here who are really illuminating about topics I have a limited knowledge of, it's what makes this forum really interesting.

At some point in the future you might find yourselves in the situation where you’re not willing to have another booster. I’m here now to support your right to choose.

However. I don't need patronising gibberish to save me from myself.

[abarro81]

And we're straight back to it, true to form. Given that you're not a total mornon I can only conclude you're back to trolling (quite successfully!) Can we ban again please?

[kelvin]

And we're straight back to it, true to form. Given that you're not a total mornon I can only conclude you're back to trolling (quite successfully!) Can we ban again please?

What he said.

[Fultonius]

Maybe he's ACTUALLY a paid up shill troll?

[reeve]

Dan, I hope you take this in the manner which I intend – one of looking out for you. I really think you need to take a couple of days out from thinking about this. Covid, vaccine mandates, and restrictions upon personal liberty are all very serious matters, but the way your posts read makes me think that you’d benefit from giving yourself some respite from thinking about it. And definitely consider some respite from posting about it on here or anywhere else, and from looking up any other links to it.

[remus]

Demanding that people take 6 monthly injections of a therapeutic with no long term safety data which is known to have some very serious adverse affects so that they can have the freedom to work, travel attend education and access healthcare is literally insane. The fact that there are people who consider this as reasonable is representative of a mass psychosis.

...or not everyone agrees that the evidence of harm is as strong as you suggest, and the decision is more nuanced. I don't think labelling one side of an argument as being part of a mass psychosis is a good way of debating. Why not start from the assumption that the people you're talking to are, broadly, reasonable and capable of forming sensible opinions?

[Nails]

In reply to LozT

CLAIM

One time in the 80’s-90’s, people died from AZT and not the actual AIDS virus; Anthony Fauci pushed this treatment

DETAILS

Unsupported: Zidovudine, or AZT, was the first HIV drug approved by the U.S. FDA in 1987. Due to the drug’s fast-track approval and toxicity, zidovudine was controversial. However, the claim that more people were killed by zidovudine rather than AIDS comes from a speculative quote by an AIDS denialist in a 1989 article about zidovudine.

Lacks context: During the early years of HIV treatment when few drugs were available, zidovudine was given to patients by most doctors. As the main spokesperson on AIDS for the federal government, Fauci was often the government official who spoke about HIV treatments, including promoting zidovudine, however, Fauci was not the only doctor or government official recommending zidovudine, nor was he instrumental in the recommendation

[Nails]

Hi Dan, as someone who spends a lot more time reading on here than posting, I recommend you try my approach. It's actually quite enlightening. It's not based around being particularly shy or retiring or being afraid of being pounced upon and humiliated by the UKB stalwarts. It's based upon finding what other people have to say interesting and informative. I like to read what other people have to say and follow the links and references. I like to fact check. Then on occasion I might consider that I actually might have something to add to a discussion. Your approach of just spewing forth relentlessly, never maintaining a consistent or reasoned argument, never actually checking the facts behind your statements (it took me around 30 seconds to find the reality about your statements on Fauci and AZT) merely antagonises people and prevents any meaningful discussion. Everything becomes centred around you but in a massively negative fashion. It destroys any thread that you post on. Please either find a more constructive way of engaging or just stop altogether.

[Offwidth]

I’m aware of the story of Wakefield and his corruption and sleaze and agree he is a disgrace.

From where I’m typing the mob seems comprised of frothing members of the covidian cult.

I see a mob as an angry ill informed group likely to cause harm to innocent bystanders and unfair targets.

The MMR  message, that Wakefield put out, terrified parents so much that a highly successful vaccination programme was at one point on its knees due to a mob of parents. Wakefield is involved again in covid misinformation that will kill a huge extra number in a mob of Republican voters, in part because people in their media bubbles can't unscramble some well hidden dishonesty in some plausible looking graphs. The villains are rich Republican extremists who see misinformation as a tool to electoral success. The villains are the russians who sow misinformation to disrupt our liberal democracies. The villains are the Wakefield types who peddle medical lies to make money.  The villains are shock jocks and Fox news presenters who say covid risks are overblown and vaccines are dangerous (quite a few of whom have died following their own idiocy). Trump is the epitome of the success of that path of democratic and structural degradation and he only just lost an election in a perfect storm.

Be sceptical but please don't support the misinformation from those c*nts.

There really are things to get upset about. I've already mentioned the cost barrier for vaccines and other covid medicine for the developing world... ignoring the horror of the pointless deaths for now.... are we going to have to build a wall around those countries because the pandemic isn't under control until it is nearly everywhere? What about variant risk that escapes vaccination protection to some serious degree?

AJM explained above why vaccine mandation is usually a bad idea and I agree. In UK care homes I see it as an almost criminally bad idea, as reducing the capacity of the UK care system and the quality of care in that system, by sacking tens of thousands of staff in the middle of a staffing crisis, is exactly what the country doesn't need now.

The risk of unvaccinated care staff is massively overblown.... shout to the mob 'they will kill your granny'... untested visitors are more likely to do that ... the unvaccinated care staff are only about twice as likely to spread covid and daily  testing and PPE should mitigate risks to the point that they become sub percentile (see below).

The real serious risk for care staff is to themselves and their loved ones. The real risk to the clients is shitter care due to understaffing. A risk to the NHS is shitter staffing means more go to hospital. Another NHS risk is shitter staffing reduces output capacity so the NHS bed blocking is worse than ever.

Practically speaking, risks are too high at times in care homes as most of our care is in fragmented system with too many 'mom and pop' businesses, massively underfunded for council clients and some homes really struggle and don''t follow procedures as well as they should. Armies of cover staff going from care home to care home doesn't help. I know this has been going on for decades as I know people who earn spare cash working part time in the system, including Lynn in the late 80s....she would say, never send your loved ones to x y or z back then.

I watched the first in Ed Balls' new series on care last night and played covid infection control error bingo (he was usually told off by the staff to be fair): that will be in a good quality care home, suitable to be televised. The care system in the UK is a national scandal.

Finally, and worse of all, we live in an open democracy and most people are good and care about important things and yet most people are clueless the NHS is in a crisis as large as it has ever been. What could be more important than we have people having heart attacks and strokes and medically justified response times are regularly being missed by hundreds of percent and sometimes thousands of percent. How can such a thing happen? Isn't that something more important to ponder on than unevidenced claims from dubious sources?

[webbo]

I'm pointing out these people are corrupt and untrustworthy, fact checking via google and the bought and paid for organisations that do this is the modern equivalent of the 'Ministry of Truth'.

Is that the first rule of conspiracy theory you just quoted. “Well they would say that”

[Offwidth]

Hi Dan, as someone who spends a lot more time reading on here than posting, I recommend you try my approach. It's actually quite enlightening. It's not based around being particularly shy or retiring or being afraid of being pounced upon and humiliated by the UKB stalwarts. It's based upon finding what other people have to say interesting and informative. I like to read what other people have to say and follow the links and references. I like to fact check. Then on occasion I might consider that I actually might have something to add to a discussion. Your approach of just spewing forth relentlessly, never maintaining a consistent or reasoned argument, never actually checking the facts behind your statements (it took me around 30 seconds to find the reality about your statements on Fauci and AZT) merely antagonises people and prevents any meaningful discussion. Everything becomes centred around you but in a massively negative fashion. It destroys any thread that you post on. Please either find a more constructive way of engaging or just stop altogether.

Yes sometimes something that looks like a manufactured conspiracy, as it seems so mad and involves criminal behaviour from doctors and criminal collusion and cover-up in the medical system in modern times, does happen to be true:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

[Nails]

And what about Big Foot at Cannock Chase. They (as in Google, Facebook and the Cannock Chase Cycling Centre) don't want us to know.

"Lee Brickley found tracks and claw marks after a decade searching for the ape-like beast.

The 33-year-old says the print was a terrifying 41cm from toe to heel – nearly twice the size of a man’s size eight.

Lee knows people will think he is “mad” but he hopes to prove them wrong. He said: “When I show them the pictures they’re amazed."

There have been sightings of a yeti-like creature around Cannock Chase in Staffordshire dating back to the 1800s.

Lee has heard of 12 in the past two years and has even camped in the woods in a bid to spot the creature that’s known in the US as Sasquatch."

[Nails]

This is the level of your posting though Dan.

[petejh]

I appreciate your concern Reeve and tend to agree, it is difficult when people appear to have taken leave of their senses.

The fact that there are people who consider this as reasonable is representative of a mass psychosis.

Scroll to the top of the page of this thread - you'll see a poll about needing to show proof of vaccination. It has a 52/48 split (sounds familiar..) broadly for/against. I'd expect that a poll on, in your words, 'demanding that people take a vaccine' would reflect great unease.
 
The picture you're attempting to paint of a mass of unthinking sheeple doesn't reflect the reality, not among posters here and probably not among people in general. It might be the reality in your mind, you might just be trolling for attention, or there's some other unhealthy reason for your intensity of focus. Whatever the reason is you should take Reeve's advice. If I was an admin at this point I'd block you for your own good so you can have a break from your proselytising.

[Plattsy]

Off topic but just on the topic of the discrediting of people in science. John Yudkin was thoroughly discredited in the 1970s because his science didn't align with the science of the powers that be at the time. Turns out he was probably more right all along.

[Wellsy]

Thing is, taking a vaccine is not just a personal choice. It's a choice that impacts society. Deciding not to do it puts other people at risk.

In my view not getting vaccinated is unethical and people who refuse to get vaccinated realistically can expect to face some social consequences; if those were codified into legal restrictions on where they can go then I'm not too concerned, as long as everyone is offered it. Although practically it seems difficult to make work.

A load of buzzwords about sheep, protecting human rights (what about people's rights not to be put at risk of a potentially deadly disease by their fellow citizen's stupidity and selfishness?) doesn't persuade me otherwise. In fact all it tells me is that someone needs to get off Facebook and grow up a bit, no matter their age!

[Will Hunt]

Dan, if you could shut up a minute we could actually discuss the question in rational terms. There's lots of people on here who are actually arguing against vaccine mandates, at least in part, but your head is so firmly rammed up your colon that you don't seem to have noticed.

I've been sceptical about vaccine mandates in the NHS and wider society but didn't care enough about it to actually look up any figures to form a proper opinion. Offwidth has posted something very interesting here:

AJM explained above why vaccine mandation is usually a bad idea and I agree. In UK care homes I see it as an almost criminally bad idea, as reducing the capacity of the UK care system and the quality of care in that system, by sacking tens of thousands of staff in the middle of a staffing crisis, is exactly what the country doesn't need now.

The risk of unvaccinated care staff is massively overblown.... shout to the mob 'they will kill your granny'... untested visitors are more likely to do that ... the unvaccinated care staff are only about twice as likely to spread covid and daily  testing and PPE should mitigate risks to the point that they become sub percentile (see below).

The real serious risk for care staff is to themselves and their loved ones. The real risk to the clients is shitter care due to understaffing. A risk to the NHS is shitter staffing means more go to hospital. Another NHS risk is shitter staffing reduces output capacity so the NHS bed blocking is worse than ever.

OW, is there any indication of what sort of % of staff need to be vaccinated to maintain this balance of risk? Does the same apply to hospital settings?

[Offwidth]

Off topic but just on the topic of the discrediting of people in science. John Yudkin was thoroughly discredited in the 1970s because his science didn't align with the science of the powers that be at the time. Turns out he was probably more right all along.

The history of Science is full of such characters including many who were actually correct but ignored for a long time, sometimes well until after their death. A lot of the older standard examples are unfair as the church controlled what could be published as science and we will never know if others sussed out what say Galileo did but kept quiet about it?   Never forget the modern scientific establishment involves a lot of politics and human emotions.

I'll try and put a list up if I have time later. My favourite consequential is the infamous Heaviside letter box conversation.

[Nails]

Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" documents this kind of thing very well. I don't really feel that this is the same as the discredited scientists mentioned throughout the thread. The ones discussed in the thread aren't just outliers, they're frauds and fantasists.

[petejh]

Likewise the story of stomach ulcers and h.pylori which I always think of when people argue for something being a 'certainty' in medicine. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)71459-8/fulltext#:~:text=Parts%20of%20the%20H%20pylori%20story%20have%20already,drank%20the%20bacterial%20suspension%20to%20test%20Koch%27s%20postulates.

But like you say history doesn't record all the people with whack theories that were proved whack, just the ones that were proved correct.

[Offwidth]

Likewise the story of stomach ulcers and h.pylori which I always think of when people argue for something being a 'certainty' in medicine. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)71459-8/fulltext#:~:text=Parts%20of%20the%20H%20pylori%20story%20have%20already,drank%20the%20bacterial%20suspension%20to%20test%20Koch%27s%20postulates.

But like you say history doesn't record all the people with whack theories that were proved whack, just the ones that were proved correct.

There are lessons to be learnt about why some correct and well evidenced scientific theories ended up being rejected. There was definitely at least group think, sometimes jealousy, and sometimes dirty politics, involved.

[Oldmanmatt]

Likewise the story of stomach ulcers and h.pylori which I always think of when people argue for something being a 'certainty' in medicine. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)71459-8/fulltext#:~:text=Parts%20of%20the%20H%20pylori%20story%20have%20already,drank%20the%20bacterial%20suspension%20to%20test%20Koch%27s%20postulates.

But like you say history doesn't record all the people with whack theories that were proved whack, just the ones that were proved correct.

There are lessons to be learnt about why some correct and well evidenced scientific theories ended up being rejected. There was definitely at least group think, sometimes jealousy, and sometimes dirty politics, involved.

Plate tectonics.

It’s easier for individuals or small groups to hold back innovative “youngsters” in niche fields, at least until their tenure/life expires and the evidence finally overwhelms the bastions of academic inertia. Pretty sure that it doesn’t apply in the examples cited by Dan, though. Most of that doesn’t even stand up to cursory examination of laymen.